Cisco respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal information you provide to us. We would like to share with you the following principles that govern our privacy practices.

Because Cisco is a global company, your personal information may be shared with other Cisco offices or subsidiaries around the world (collectively Cisco). All such entities are bound by appropriate confidentiality and data transfer agreements. In addition, all such entities are governed by this Privacy Statement, except when you are dealing directly with Linksys or WebEx, which are Cisco companies. In those cases, Linksys or WebExs respective privacy statements will apply. This statement may be superseded by specific program-level documentation or agreements between you and Cisco.

The Information We Collect

Throughout this policy, we refer to information that personally identifies you as Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information. Cisco collects your Personal Information or Sensitive Personal Information so that we can respond to your requests, which may include, for example, processing your orders, adding you to email lists, or registering you for events.

Personal Information is any information that can identify you as an individual, such as your name, postal or email address, phone number, occupation, or personal interests. Sensitive Personal Information is any information that would permit access to your financial account, including account number, credit or debit card number, in combination with any required security code, access code or password.

If you give us Personal Information about somebody else, such as a spouse or work colleague, you must have that persons permission to do so.

In many instances, you may browse the Cisco website anonymously. When you arrive at the Cisco website, we record your IP address (the Internet address of your computer) to give us an idea of which parts of the website you visit and how long you spend there. We do not link your IP address to any Personal Information unless you have registered with us and logged in using your profile.

Access to certain Cisco web pages, services, products and activities requires a login and a password. It is your responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of your login and password information.

You may choose to give us Personal Information in a variety of situations, including when you:

register with Cisco for an account on Cisco websites;

use certain Cisco products or services;

register to attend a seminar;

participate in an online survey;

ask to be included in an email or other mailing list;

submit an entry for a sweepstakes or other promotion; or

when you submit your personal information to Cisco for any other reason

From time to time, Cisco receives personal information from our business partners and vendors. Cisco only uses this information if it has been collected in accordance with privacy practices consistent with this Privacy Statement.

Your Choice and Control

We will always tell you before we collect any Personal Information and inform you of the purpose of the collection. We will ask for your consent before we use or share your information for any purpose other than the reason you provided it. In order to let us know your preferences, we will require an action on your part, such as checking the appropriate option, to indicate your consent.

How We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Like many websites, Cisco uses technologies, such as cookies and web beacons, which allow us to make your visit to our website easier, more efficient and more valuable by providing you with a customized experience and recognizing you when you return.

A cookie is a small data file transferred by a website to your computers hard drive. Ciscos website sends cookies when you visit it, make purchases, request or personalize information, or register yourself for certain services. A cookie cannot read personal data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites; indeed, the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. Accepting the cookies used on our website may give us access to information about your browsing behavior, which we may use to personalize your experience and track user traffic patterns. We do this in order to determine the usefulness of our website information to our users and to see how effective our navigational structure is in helping users reach that information.

Cookies are typically classified as either session cookies or persistent cookies.

Session cookies do not stay on your computer after you close your browser.

Persistent cookies remain on your computer until you delete them or they expire.

You may browse most of Ciscos website without accepting cookies from Cisco, however, some website functionality may be lost by disabling cookies on your computer. Other Cisco web pages, particularly those which require a login and password, require cookies and cannot be used when you have disabled cookies in your browser.

In addition, Cisco uses web beacons in conjunction with cookies to understand user behavior. A web beacon is an electronic image, found on a website or HTML-formatted email and is called a single-pixel (1x1) or clear GIF. The web beacon is one of the ingredients of the page, just like other images and text except it is so small and clear that it is effectively invisible. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information on a users computer, such as cookies, time and date of a page view and a description of the page where the web beacon is placed. They are simply a convenient way of gathering basic statistics and managing cookies, and do not give away any extra information from your computer. Turning off your browser's cookies will prevent web beacons from tracking your specific activity. The web beacon may still record an anonymous visit from your IP address, but unique information will not be recorded.

Cisco may also use customized links or other similar technologies to track email links that you click. We may associate that information with your Personal Information in order to provide you more focused e-mail communications or purchase information. Each e-mail communication includes an unsubscribe link allowing you to stop delivery of that type of communication.

If you prefer not to receive cookies while browsing our website or via HTML-formatted emails, you can set your browser to warn you before it accepts cookies or refuse the cookie when your browser alerts you to its presence. You can also refuse all cookies by turning them off in your browser.

How We Use Your Personal Information

Cisco uses your Personal Information to respond to your requests, and to do so, we may need to share your information with others. In that case, we share only the information necessary to handle your request and obligate these other parties to limit their use of your Personal Information to fulfilling your request. In addition, we may use your Personal Information to contact you as part of our customer satisfaction surveys or for market research purposes, with your permission.

We will use your Personal Information to provide products and services you have asked for, to respond to callback requests, and to provide specific marketing materials you have requested. The third parties we may need to share your information with include our business partners (for instance, as part of a joint sales promotion or to pass sales leads to one of our distribution partners); service vendors; shipping companies; and postal and government authorities (such as Customs authorities).

In the event that your employer has a written agreement with Cisco governing access to Cisco information or programs, Cisco may use your Personal Information to verify compliance with the agreement, log software licenses granted, track software downloaded from those pages, or track usage of other applications available on those pages.

We may also use your Personal Information to create anonymous data records or aggregations of data, to perform statistical analyses and for other purposes, by omitting or removing information (such as your name) that makes the data personally identifiable to you. We will also disclose your Personal Information if required to do so by law, to enforce our Terms of Use, or in urgent circumstances, to protect personal safety, the public or our websites.

Any Sensitive Personal Information that you provide will only be used to implement the specific activity or event it was submitted for and will then be destroyed.

If you choose to deactivate your account, where permitted by law we will retain in our files some of your Personal Information to prevent fraud, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, enforce our Terms of Use, respect your opt-out preferences, and comply with legal requirements.

How We Protect Your Information

Cisco safeguards the security of the data you send us with industry-standard physical, electronic, and managerial procedures. When appropriate, Cisco websites use SSL-encryption to enhance the security of sensitive data transmissions. Inside Cisco, data is stored in controlled servers with limited access. Your information may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country where Cisco, its subsidiaries, affiliates or agents are located.

While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure the security of the information you transmit to us over an unsecured Internet connection. We therefore urge you to take every precaution to protect your personal data when you are on the Internet.

Some ways to protect your personal data include changing your passwords often, using a combination of letters and numbers in passwords, and making sure you use a secure browser. In addition, be aware of phishing attacks, which attempt to steal consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials. Phishers use 'spoofed' e-mails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging sensitive personal information such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords and social security numbers. Cisco will never send an email asking you to provide or confirm Sensitive Personal Information. If you receive a communication such as this, please immediately forward it to privacy@cisco.com and immediately delete it from your computer.

Children and Privacy

Our websites do not target and are not intended to attract children under the age of 13. Cisco does not knowingly solicit personal information from children under the age of 13 or send them requests for Personal Information.

Third Party Sites

Cisco's website contains links to third party websites, some of which may be co-branded with the Cisco logo. However, these websites are not operated or maintained by Cisco, and Cisco does not share your Personal Information with these websites and is not responsible for their privacy practices. Your use of any third party website is at your own risk.

Although we choose our business partners carefully, Cisco cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of websites operated by third parties that are linked to from our site. Once you have left our website, you should make a practice of checking the applicable privacy statement of the third party website to determine how they will use any information they collect from you.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

This document was last updated on August 11, 2008. Cisco may amend this privacy statement from time to time, and at any time. We will post a notice on our website home page for 30 days whenever this Privacy Statement is materially changed. Your continued use of the Cisco website after any change will signify and confirm your assent to those changes.

Questions or Suggestions

If you have questions or concerns about our collection, use, or disclosure of your Personal Information, please email us at privacy@cisco.com.